XAVC vs ProRes 422HQ

Last week I wanted to spend a little bit of time with our Sony PMW-F55 while it was in the shop before going out to have its ProRes board installed.  Without having anything in particular to shoot I decided to put the camera on our Kessler Cine Slider and throw some random items on the counter.  Then for fun I put our Odyssey 7Q on the camera and hooked it up for 4k recording using dual-link SDI inputs.  This allowed me to record XAVC and ProRes 422HQ simultaneously, just to see if there was a noticeable difference between them.  Check out the video to see if you can spot the difference for yourself.

If you couldn’t see the difference, you are not alone.  I did not see a difference when I was putting the footage together or in the final product.  On top of not being able to see a difference, I was able to work with the XAVC footage natively in Final Cut Pro X just as easily as I did with the ProRes so there is no reason, edit wise, to shoot the ProRes.  Add to that the stark difference in file sizes (the ProRes file was 2.7x larger), many productions could save quite a bit on camera media and storage by shooting XAVC.

If you want to know more about the XAVC codec you can check out a great explanation on our Sony XAVC pages.  Or you can check out RedShark News for 10 reasons to like the XAVC codec.  Or of course you can give us a call or stop in and see for yourself.

-Keith M.

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